Thursday, October 31, 2013

Two-time Collegiate Bowler of the Year Marshall Kent of Yakima, WA, the only amateur in the field, won the top berth for the stepladder finals of the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA)’s Scorpion Championship Tuesday at South Point Bowling Center.

Kent, a student at Robert Morris University-Illinois in Chicago, averaged 227.79 for 14 games on the Scorpion lane condition, finishing with a 3,189 pinfall total to claim the top rung in the stepladder finals by 12 pins over 2012 PBA World Champion Tom Smallwood of Saginaw, MI. Josh Blanchard of Gilbert, AZ, qualified third with a 3,162 total and Tommy Jones of Simpsonville, SC, earned the fourth spot in the finals with 3,146 pins, 23 ahead of three-time PBA50 Player of the Year Tom Baker of King, NC.

Blanchard and Jones, bowling on the same pair of lanes, rolled matching 269 final games to earn their shots at the title. The Scorpion Championship finals will take place on Saturday, Nov. 2, at 7 p.m. ESPN will air the finals on Sunday, Dec. 22, at 1 p.m. ET. The Scorpion Championship was the fourth of five PBA Tour events that compose the PBA World Series of Bowling.

Kent, who finished fourth in Bowling’s U.S. Open in July, was invited to bowl in the World Series on a PBA Commissioner’s Exemption because he is still in college.

Earlier Tuesday, England’s Dom Barrett led the field of 24 players who advanced to the PBA World Championship round-robin match play finals Wednesday and Thursday based upon combined 28-game qualifying pinfall totals from the Cheetah, Viper, Chameleon and Scorpion rounds. Barrett averaged 237.67 in compiling a 6,655 pinfall total for 28 games, topping Wes Malott of Pflugerville, Texas, by 209 pins. Maldonado qualified third with 6,405 pins.

The match play rounds of the PBA World Championship Wednesday and Thursday will be covered live on PBA’s Xtra Frame online bowling channel, and via “live scoring” on pba.com. For daily, monthly or yearly subscriptions to Xtra Frame, click on the Xtra Frame link on the pba.com home page.

England’s Dom Barrett advanced from sixth place to first Monday night, claiming the No. 1 berth in the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA)’s Chameleon Championship stepladder finals at South Point Bowling Center, in Las Vegas, NV, the third of five events that compose the PBA World Series of Bowling V.

Barrett, who won his only PBA Tour title in the 2011 Scorpion Championship, will lead a field of four into the Chameleon Championship finals on Saturday, Nov. 2. ESPN will air the finals on Sunday, Dec. 15, at 1 p.m. ET. Also winning berths in the championship round were Brian Kretzer of Dayton, Ohio; Ryan Ciminelli of Cheektowaga, NY, and 2010 PBA World Champion Tom Smallwood of Saginaw, MI.

Barrett rolled the only 300 game in the semifinal round Monday night, finishing with a 14-game total of 3,246 pins to win the top seed in the stepladder finals by 13 pins over Kretzer, who also is a one-time PBA Tour title winner. Ciminelli, who earned the top berth in the Viper Championship presented by PBA Bowling Challenge Sunday night, is the first player in World Series V to qualify for two telecasts. Smallwood won the fourth spot by four pins over Patrick Allen of Wesley Chapel, FL, who earlier in the round called a foul on himself, costing him a place in the stepladder finals.

“It was a great run, perfect, couldn’t have worked out better,” Barrett said. “I won my title on the old Scorpion pattern, which is very similar to the new Chameleon lane condition, and it really matched up well to my game. I used the knowledge I’ve gotten from bowling in this center before and it helped me a lot.

“I’m over the moon,” he said with a grin. “I’ve bowled the best this week that I’ve ever bowled in my life, and this is the World Series, the biggest event there is. I had a couple of down moments in (the Viper Championship semifinal round) last night, but I went to bed, thought about it and woke up with a new attitude.”

Barrett went into the Viper semifinal round Sunday night as the tournament leader, but fell to 13th place by the end of the round.

Earlier Monday, the field of 235 players completed the third of four qualifying rounds for the PBA World Championship. The combined seven-game qualifying scores from the four animal pattern tournaments – Cheetah, Viper, Chameleon and Tuesday’s Scorpion Championship – will determine the top 24 players who will advance to World Championship round-robin match play on Wednesday and Thursday. After the Chameleon round, Barrett led World Championship qualifying with 5,046 pins, followed by Wes Malott of Pflugerville, Texas, with a 4,905 total and Jason Belmonte of Australia in third place with 4,836 pins.

All qualifying rounds from the World Series are being covered live on PBA’s Xtra Frame online bowling channel, and via “live scoring” on pba.com. Tuesday’s schedule includes Scorpion Championship qualifying squads at 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. PT, and the top 24 semifinal round starting at 7:30 p.m.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Ryan Ciminelli of Cheektowaga, NY, with a strike in the 10th frame of his final game Sunday, captured the top berth for the Professional Bowlers Association’s Viper Championship presented by PBA Bowling Challenge at South Point Bowling Center, Las Vegas, NV.

The Viper Championship is the second of five PBA Tour events that compose the PBA World Series of Bowling V.Ciminelli, who won his only PBA Tour title in the 2011 Earl Anthony Memorial, battled for the lead all day, but didn’t make the move into first place until the final frame of his 14th game. His 268 final game gave him a total of 3,244 pins (231.71 average) and the lead by 18 pins over Chris Barnes of Double Oak, Texas. England’s Stuart Williams finished third and Australia’s Jason Belmonte earned the fourth berth in the Nov. 2 Viper finals with a 3,178 total, 32 pins ahead of D.J. Archer of Friendswood, Texas, who rolled the only 300 of the Viper event in the final game.

“Considering how demanding the lane conditions were, I threw a lot of strikes,” Ciminelli said. “The lanes were just downright tough, especially after the high scores we had Saturday (in the Cheetah Championship).

“The first three games today, I had the pocket, but I couldn’t knock pins over. I figured the day was going to be short, just like it was Saturday. But I changed balls and the pins started falling. It didn’t matter if I hit the pocket light, heavy, whatever. As long as I kept my feet slow and got the ball out on the lane, everything fell into place.”

NFL all-pro wide receiver Terrell Owens, who is making is professional bowling debut in the World Series, averaged 145.71 on the Viper lane condition Sunday.

“Bad day,” he said. “It’s frustrating because I know I can do better, but it’s all a learning process. I’m a competitive person. I’m not going to give up.”

All qualifying rounds from the World Series are being covered live on PBA’s Xtra Frame online bowling channel, and via “live scoring” on pba.com. For daily, monthly or yearly subscriptions to Xtra Frame, click on the Xtra Frame link on the pba.com home page.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Defending Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) World Champion Parker Bohn III of Jackson, NJ, rolled a pair of 300 games Saturday on his way to earning the top qualifying position for the PBA Cheetah Championship finals at South Point Bowling Center while Colombia native Clara Guerrero became the third woman in PBA history to qualify for a nationally-televised stepladder final.

The Cheetah Championship is the first of five tournaments on the PBA World Series of Bowling V program which continues through Nov. 3.

Bohn, who won the 2012 World Championship during PBA World Series of Bowling IV, fired his 91st and 92nd career 300 games (one behind all-time leader Walter Ray Williams Jr., who has 93 perfect games in PBA competition) for a 14-game total of 3,503 pins and a 250.21 average. The 33-time PBA Tour champion won the top berth in the Cheetah stepladder finals by 49 pins over fellow PBA Hall of Famer and 37-time Tour champion Pete Weber of St. Ann, MO. Wes Malott of Pflugerville, Texas, the 2013 U.S. Open champion, qualified third with 3,452 pins and Guerrero finished her climb from 10th place to claim the fourth berth in the finals with a 3,446 total.

Guerrero will join Kelly Kulick of Union, NJ, and Liz Johnson of Cheektowaga, NY, as the third woman to reach the championship round of a PBA Tour event. Kulick went on to win the 2010 PBA Tournament of Champions to become the only woman to capture a PBA National Tour title.

The Cheetah Championship finals will be conducted on Saturday, Nov. 2, on lanes installed in South Point’s Exhibition Hall B and will air on ESPN on Sunday, Dec. 1, at 1 p.m. ET.

Bohn, who started the semifinal round in fifth place, found his comfort zone and ran away from the field.

“I don’t have many issues with the Cheetah lane condition,” Bohn said. “My speed allowed me to play it comfortably. The lanes were a little tighter than they were in practice, but once I got my speed dialed in, the ball did what it was supposed to do.

“I’m very, very happy,” he added. “Now I get to bowl one game for the title, which is always a good thing. Even better, I’m way ahead of last year when I didn’t have one top 16 finish in any of the animal pattern events, but I still won the World Championship.”

Guerrero’s charge out of 10th place was a surprise to everyone but her. Earlier in the day, she became the second woman in the five-year history of PBA World Series competition to finish among the top 24 in the 238-player, male-dominated event. Kulick finished 15th in the 2010 Shark Championship, seventh in the 2011 Chameleon Championship and 21st in the 2012 Viper Championship. Guerrero also joined an elite group of women who have won a PBA Regional title when she won her first PBA Southwest Region title in Austin, Texas, last October.

“It would be very nice to win a title here, too,” she smiled. “I’d like to finish history the right way.”

Guerrero started her final seven-game round with a 189 game, an ominous total in the high-scoring Cheetah contest, but followed with games of 244, 289, 213, 267, 278 and 277 to complete her stunning rally.

“I was a little stiff from the layoff between the first and semifinal rounds, but then I got my rhythm and made better shots,” the former Wichita State University All-American said. “After the 189 start, I didn’t think I could make it, but after a couple of big games, I saw I had a chance and in the last couple of games, I really went for it. Things came my way. I finished strong. It was great.”

Guerrero, who has been a member of Colombia’s national bowling team since 1995 when she qualified at age 13, is now a U.S. citizen, married and living in Pflugerville, Texas.

Earlier Saturday, National Football League all-pro wide receiver Terrell Owens made his professional bowling PBA debut in the Cheetah Championship, and struggled to finish with a 1,178 total, a 168.29 average. But he said he wasn’t terribly disappointed.

“I got better as I bowled,” Owens said. “I had 194 my last game, which was decent, and I didn’t come in last.

“These are best bowlers in the world. By no means did I expect to come in here and crush the lanes,” Owens added. “Obviously I have a lot of learning to do. But tomorrow is another day and I can only get better.”

World Series competition continues Sunday with the Viper Championshippresented by PBA Bowling Challenge. Qualifying squads will bowl seven games at 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. PT, with the top 24 advancing to the seven-game semifinal round at 7:30 p.m. The final two animal pattern events – the Chameleon and Scorpion Championships – will be held on Monday and Tuesday, respectively.

All qualifying rounds from the World Series are being covered live on PBA’s Xtra Frame online bowling channel, and via “live scoring” on pba.com. For daily, monthly or yearly subscriptions to Xtra Frame, click on the Xtra Frame link on the pba.com home page.

Statistically speaking, the Jason Belmonte vs. Sean Rash rivalry will once again be the headline attraction as a sold-out field of 240 of the world’s top professional bowlers return to South Point Bowling Center this week for the start of PBA World Series of Bowling V.

PBA fans around the world are invited to purchase a low-cost “ticket” to watch all of the qualifying and match play action on Xtra Frame, the PBA’s exclusive online bowling channel (or track free live scoring free on pba.com). “Day Pass,” monthly and annual Xtra Frame subscriptions are available by visiting pba.com and clicking on the Xtra Frame link.

In addition to following the action as it happens, PBA fans are invited to participate in a new “U Pick the Finalists” contests which offers prizes for picking the ESPN finalists in each event. For more information about the contest, click here: http://www.pba.com/Resources/Contest

The World Series, which got its start in suburban Detroit in 2009, is a multi-event competition on a variety of challenging lane conditions, leading up to a full weekend of ESPN television finals Nov. 2-3. At stake will be five PBA Tour titles, including the final major championship of the 2012-13 season – the 2013 PBA World Championship.

Over the first four World Series, Belmonte and Rash have earned their roles as World Series headliners based upon their past performances in the event. Belmonte – a two-handed power player from Australia – is the earnings leader with a composite total of $191,190 in WSOB earnings, leads in ESPN television appearances (13) and is tied with Bill O’Neill of Langhorne, PA, with most WSOB titles won (three).

Rash, also regarded as one of the PBA Tour’s top power players, is right behind Belmonte in ESPN appearances (12), but has not yet won a WSOB title. He is the all-time WSOB average leader, scoring at a 223.19 pace for 475 games bowled, and in total pinfall (106,013 pins for 475 World Series games bowled). But he ranks “only” fourth in WSOB earnings ($135,140) due, in part, to the absence of any first-place prize money.

Despite their overall dominance, neither Belmonte nor Rash leads in any of the traditional animal pattern championships which are hallmarks of the World Series. The animal pattern competitions are bowled on unique lane conditions named after animals – and the combined qualifying scores for those animal pattern events has been used as the qualifier for players to advance into the PBA World Championship match play final rounds. Rash is the World Championship’s top qualifier over the past four years, averaging 232.21 for 192 games – just over four pins higher than Belmonte (228.01) for the same number of games.

In animal pattern events, several other players have had significant success, including O’Neill, who ranks third in TV appearances (8) and shares the titles lead with Belmonte (3). Finland’s two-handed star, Osku Palermaa; 37-time time PBA Tour champion Norm Duke of Clarmont, FL, and Scott Norton of Mission Viejo, CA, have each won two WSOB titles. Palermaa, Mike Fagan of Fort Worth, Texas, and Wes Malott of Pflugerville, Texas, have made six TV finals.

There is also “international vs. United States” drama during the World Series. In 2011, international players won all seven singles titles contest; last year, U.S. players swept all five individual titles.

In animal pattern championships, the top two players in qualifying averages for each event, based upon a minimum of 40 games, are:

● Chameleon: Scott Norton 230.49; Jason Belmonte 225.38.

● Cheetah: Norm Duke 243.58, Eugene McCune 241.52.

● Scorpion: Dom Barrett 228.70, Jason Belmonte 222.87.

● Viper: Brad Angelo 222.60, Bill O’Neill 222.39.

The Cheetah Championship will lead off the WSOB V schedule on Saturday, Oct. 26, with seven qualifying games and an additional seven-game semifinal round for the top 24 qualifiers. The same format will apply for the Viper Championship on Oct. 27, the Chameleon Championship on Oct. 28 and the Scorpion Championship on Oct. 29. The top 24 players based upon 28 combined animal pattern qualifying games will advance to the PBA World Championship round robin match play on Oct. 30-31.

For each animal pattern event, the top four after 14 games advance to ESPN finals on Nov. 2 and for the World Championship, the top five after 52 qualifying and match play games advance to the ESPN finals on Nov. 3 – all in South Point’s Exhibition Hall B.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Brunswick Mastermind™Pro Performance.
“The black/blue/orange solid Mastermind provides the
strongest hook motion of any Brunswick
ball to date” reports Brunswick. The
Mastermind
combines the
latest cutting edge Honor Roll Solid coverstock and the new Mastermind Ultra
Low RG core to produce unsurpassed traction in the oil and on the backend. The
result is higher angular velocity for increased pin action and higher scores on
heavy oil lane conditions.

Melee™ High
Performance. The red
solid Melee
features the new Savvy Solid reactive coverstock and a new medium RG symmetric
core to provide maximum versatility on a variety of oil patterns. The result is
easy length with a forceful backend reaction.

Ringer™
Platinum Pearl Affordable Performance The Ringer Platinum Pearl features
a new low friction coverstock formulation matched with the Ringer Medium RG symmetric core to provide a ball motion that
projects easily down the lane with backend flip on medium to light oil lane
conditions.

Unlike the original Incinerate, which was designed to generate maximum friction on heavy oil, the Incinerate Pearl will go long and make an extremely strong move on the backend.In order to create a ball that would torch the back of the lane and produce that head turning backend everyone desires, AMF300 wrapped the Incinerate Pearl with our F73 coverstock. AMF raised the RG on the new Incinerate's symmetric Tower core to 2.54 and kept the Differential at 0.050 to insure a clean motion up-front, while providing plenty of continuation on the backend.

The word Legacy is defined as
something of value handed down from generation to generation. The new EboniteLegacy
is the next generation of one of the best selling Ebonite balls ever,
the Total NV. Utilizing the great core shape that was used in the Total
NV, the Spike Symmetric Mass Bias core, taking a technology leap with the
new XL2010 Hybrid cover.

At the heart
of the Cruel Intent™ is the huge Sinister™ core. It harnesses asymmetry
to boost track flare and promote proper transition in very low friction
environments. MOTIV reports “The Cruel Intent™ is a dominating power
pearl for heavy oil. It is the cleanest and most angular asymmetric ball MOTIV™
has ever produced.” World Wide Release Date: 11/8/2013

Sunday, October 6, 2013

The Eagle Pearl, adding to the dynasty of the Eagle line, the Eagle Pearl features the Break Core with a low Rg and MAXED out Differential. The Break core is wrapped in the fan-favorite S70 shell in Black, pearlized and polished. 900 Global reports “the Eagle Pearl is going to provide an effortless move through the front part of the lane and a monstrous backend thrash that will send the pins scurrying for cover!”

Reax™ Version 2 “We have worked hard to find a new resin formulation,” reports a Radical spokesman “and the results are magnificent.” This new resin allows the REAX Version 2 to clear the fronts with ease and corner like there is no tomorrow, a motion not normally seen in an aggressive asymmetrical ball. However, Radical cautions that the REAX Version 2 has more overall hook than its original version, but we moved that hook to the back end of the lane. The result is a strong hooking ball that retains energy through the pins, and this energy retention translates into better pin carry. The core in theREAX Version 2 is a new technology as well. Radical incorporated the finger scoop concept first seen in the original Yeti™ and combined it with the patented Off-Set Technology in the original REAX™. The results are eye-opening with a ball motion not seen in the market since the introduction of the resin coverstock.

Yeti™ Untamed This second generation Yeti incorporates the same dynamic symmetric core as the original Yeti with a new resin base coverstock. “The Yeti Untamed is a monster, and it has more overall hook than the original Yeti with most of the action taking place down the lane” reports Radical. To say the Yeti Untamed has a big back end would be an understatement. With its polished finish (500 Siaair Micro Pad, Royal Compound, Royal Shine), the black/emerald green solid Yeti Untamed offers unmatched performance at this price point.

DV8 DUDE™ The black/purple Dude features the new Class 4F Solid
coverstock matched with the new high RG, symmetric Dude core to provide outstanding versatility for a variety of
bowling styles. DV8 reports: “The Dude
floats easily down the lane and provides plenty of flip at the breakpoint to
attack the pins on medium to light oil lane conditions.” Look for a similar
reaction to the Diva, as the Dude contains the same core, with less pink in the
cover!